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US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

vox.com

151–160 of 200 posts

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#151
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please explain for non-americans what's the actual problem with havinf ID in US? Is it like most people only have driver license and ones who don't have a car (because they are poor) don't need one or it's more complicated? Where I'm from everybody is required by law to have one from the age of 14 and gets it for free for the first time. You just can't have anything done without id and tax identification code…

I had to take a day off work to get my drivers license, and I was just transferring one from out of state. The lines were around the building before it opened. Now imagine doing that when you work an hourly service job instead of a salaried engineering job.

In some states, you'd have committed a crime already. You must replace your license before starting your job.

So at least in those states, it isn't an issue. You have every day off from work.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#152
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vox is just trying to delegitimize the election ahead of a potential loss. They did the same thing for the Supreme Court. Textbook fearmongering.

Further the article never mentions: ID, illegals, undocumented Complaining about fraud via electronic voting machines and ignoring the 20M+ that are potentially voting illegally is quite curious indeed.

Wow! It’s an entirely unsupported claim of 20 million now.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#153
post #36
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s nothing curious about concentrating on the problems that actually happen.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/oct/18/texas-democ... Rasmussen Poll shows 54% of Democrats support giving illegals right to vote. I don't know why you are going against what the majority of your party openly wants?

“illegals” is a ridiculous and perjorative term. It’s not possible to be an illegal human being. Strange how people who supposedly abhor ‘big government’ and ‘over regulation’ give vast credence to government’s power to permit people to exist within an area or not.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#154
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that your response to the gigantic list of legitimate concerns about our Swiss-cheese election system... it’s all a conspiracy by the media?

If they win they won't complain but if they lose they'll say the election was hacked because of the machines. He's not delegitimising the concerns about the machines, which are evident. He's delegitimising the way journalists are bitching about it. (I don't follow the American election so I don't know who will win.)

I disagree that writing articles is ‘journalists bitching’, and I’m disappointed and even shocked that people are dense enough to have that perception or attitude.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#155

Paper ballots are the superior method of voting. It makes it nigh impossible to cheat at a large scale and there's a paper trail verified by multiple adversarial parties. It's also way more reliable due to the sheer simplicity of the system. For a system as important as our elections we should take every precaution possible. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I don't even trust mail-in ballots. I'm perfectly content to fill out…

I dont trust mail in ballots because of the potemtial for spousal intimidation and fraud.

Oregon has had 100% vote by mail for 20 years. I would think that if this was a major problem it would have shown up by now.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#156

Paper ballots are the superior method of voting. It makes it nigh impossible to cheat at a large scale and there's a paper trail verified by multiple adversarial parties. It's also way more reliable due to the sheer simplicity of the system. For a system as important as our elections we should take every precaution possible. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I don't even trust mail-in ballots. I'm perfectly content to fill out…

In Australia's case there is little need for presenting ID.

An Australian polling booth has a copy of the electoral roll, with names and addresses (homeless people can enroll with name only). This roll is marked when you vote, and then the roll is analysed afterwards. Attempting to stuff the ballot box by impersonating someone will show up as duplicate marks on the roll. You won't get far with impersonating random people as voting is compulsory in most elections so duplicates will quickly happen. You could vote twice if guaranteed in advance that someone wasn't going to vote, but at best you will get only a small number of extra votes that way.

The aim with an election isn't necessarily to outright prevent cheating, but to prevent undetected cheating. Hence why ID isn't so crucial (at least in Australia).

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in the public sector of Scandinavia, where we’ve digitised voter registration to make queues more efficient but kept the actual voting part on paper. Overall there isn’t a reason to have voting machines, and if you do, they should really just print a piece of paper with your vote so that you can make sure it’s what you picked. You’ll sometimes hear finance and efficiency as a reason, but unless American licens…

> You can never vote from home in a democracy, because people might force you to vote a way you didn’t want to. I don’t really think groups would show up at your house to force you to do anything, but we frequently get husbands ask if they can vote for their wives, and if they could do that from home, no one would be there to stop them. The states that implement vote-by-mail in US (which, coincidentally, uses paper b…

If you want to mail order in my country you have to go to a voting place and go through the regular process. Exactly to prevent forced voting.

We set these up at libraries and other muniplacity buildings that already offer citizen things (English is my third language sorry).

We also have voting busses that go to low voting neighbourshoods and we obviously setup voting in nursing homes, hospitals and such.

But the process is always you, alone in the booth, with a piece of paper. Unless you have a physical handicap, then two officials will help you vote.

Taking a photo of your ballot is illegal, but as you say, it’s impossibil to enforce. You do have options though, we use pencils in the booth and you can always ask for a replacement ballot until your vote is cast. So you could technically take a photo and still vote another way.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#158
post #75
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it should also be a requirement to show a state or federal ID before you can cast your vote. I'm always floored when people try to defend voting without requiring any kind of identity verification. In Puerto Rico you're required to register ahead of time for a voter ID and you must present it in order to vote. If Puerto Rico, which is drastically poorer than all 50 states, can pull this off without it being…

The same proponents of stronger voter ID laws are also the same people who are incomprehensibly paranoid about the notion of a national ID system.

There are enough valid id systems in place there's no need for much more, and they are not totally messed up.

Showing an ID to vote is utterly common sense.

Instead of all those voter registration campaigns that everyone spends money on ... they should be spending on 'just getting ID'. And then maybe there should be no need to even register in many cases, if you're ID w/address is good enough.

Two birds.

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#159
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wholeheartedly agree. Which is why whoever will be the first one to propose a no-cost, easy-to-get national ID (could be issued via post offices, since those already have pervasive geographic coverage) combined with voter ID, pitching it all as "a real investment into election security while protecting the right of all citizens to vote" or some such, would likely win this political fight.

Unfortunately this has a lot of opposition behind it from republican voters who believe in kooky mark of the beast theories, and concerns about federal government surveillance. You can be completely certain they would fan those flames hard if a proposal like this ever saw the light of day.

[deleted]

Re: US election system reveals frightening vulnerabilities at almost every level

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're so bad off that you can't make it to a place to get an Id, then you're probably too poor to make it to a place to register to vote too. There's no reason that state issued Ids can't be done via mobile platforms. Also, I'm not saying it doesn't disenfranchise voters, but the numbers are so incredibly small that it's statistically insignificant.

.5% of the entire US population is homeless, most of which are practically prohibited by law to obtain a valid ID. That's not statistically insignificant at all. https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/sta...

  most of which are practically prohibited by law to obtain a valid ID
This is false, and your quoted source doesn't make that claim.
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